beyond the mountains

I take the opportunity to be in Hong Kong to update my blog, since the chinese authorities don't seem to allow blogspot to work properly within their "internet range". So here are random pics from Beijing, Hangzhou (where I am currenlty staying for my project) & Shanghai!!! I wish I could update my world more often and with more extensive text, but time is running short in the "outside world" Take care

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Pope Benedict XVI has weighed in on the sensitive issue of rapport between Islam and the West: He said that violence, embodied in the Muslim idea of jihad, or holy war, is contrary to reason and God's plan, while the West was so beholden to reason that Islam could not understand it. Nonetheless, in a complex treatise delivered Tuesday at the university here where he once taught, he suggested reason as a common ground for a "genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today." In all, the speech seemed to reflect the Vatican's struggle over how to confront Islam and terrorism, as the 79- year-old pope pursues what is often considered a more provocative, hard- nosed and skeptical approach to Islam than his predecessor, John Paul II. As such, it distilled many of Benedict's longstanding concerns, about the crisis of faith among Christians and about Islam and its relationship to violence. And he used language open to interpretations that could inflame...

By Sa'ad Al Deen Ebrahim, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service_ US President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may be quite right about a new Middle East being born. In fact, their policies in support of the actions of their closest regional ally, Israel, have helped midwife the newborn. But it will not be exactly the baby they have longed for. What is happening in the broader Middle East and North Africa can be seen as a boomerang effect that has been playing out slowly since the horrific events of September 11, 2001. In the immediate aftermath of those attacks, there was worldwide sympathy for the US and support for its declared "war on terrorism", including the invasion of Afghanistan. Then the cynical exploitation of this universal goodwill by so-called neoconservatives to advance hegemonic designs was confirmed by the war in Iraq. The Bush administration's dishonest statements about "weapons of mass destruction" diminished wh...

"Underground Berlin’s community of controlled madness — where radical thinkers and doers enjoy the freedom to be uncomfortable and social at the same time, in a town where work itself is being redefined in a local economy that rarely offers more than potential income-earning via government subsidies (for German citizens) and projects at home and (more likely) abroad for everyone else — is an opportunity for an artist that must be seized." Metro Times - Losing your mind in Berlin

This animated movie just won the "crystal du long metrage" at the annecy international animated film festival... You liked Sin City and Max Payne? Check Renaissance !(right click and save as...usual)

On May 22nd, I had the opportunity to take part in the World Economic Forum in Sharm El Sheikh, one of the highlights in my "career". Still, i found the video footage where you can see your humble servant asking a question to the future egyptian head of state, namely Gamal "Jimmy G" Mubarak himself (Jump to 1h:10min:28sec)....Gloups!. Just listen to the question, the answer is not worth it ;)

Dear all, Most of you know what a music freak I am... Took me a while, but i finally found out a way to share my favorite (old and new) tracks. I'll try to post a 10-track playlist each month, just for you! Hopefully the links will work properly (Just scroll down and follow the instruction on the webhoster) August 2006 Matthew Dear- Tide Tekel - Ronron Baxendale - I built this city for you (Justus Kohncke Mix) Ellen Allien & Apparat - Turbo Dreams (Marc Houle Remix) TrenteMoller - Serenetti(Hemman & Kaden Remix) Slam - Kill the pain(Marc Houle Vocal Mix) DJ Remy & Roland Klinkenberg - Scrambled (Nathan Fake Remix) Guido Schneider - Oh My Buffer Agoria - Les Beaux Jours ft N Zeng Alex Under + Marc Houle - Business Shufflephunk Beats

A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his "wife", after he was caught having sex with the animal. The goat's owner, Mr Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders. They ordered the man, Mr Tombe, to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50) to Mr Alifi. "We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together," Mr Alifi said. Mr Alifi, Hai Malakal in Upper Nile State, told the Juba Post newspaper that he heard a loud noise around midnight on 13 February and immediately rushed outside to find Mr Tombe with his goat. "When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up". Mr Alifi then called elders to decide how to deal with the case. "They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife," Mr Alifi told the newspaper.

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French journalist stabbed to death at his home Reporters Without Borders said today it was “very shocked” by the murder of French journalist Grégoire de Bourgues at his home in Almaty on 2 August and called for an immediate investigation. De Bourgues, 24, had been in Kazakhstan since 22 April as an editorial adviser for an Athens-based firm called SML Strategic Media, which had sent him there for three months to do an advertising feature for the US magazine Foreign Affairs. “We urge the authorities to do all they can to solve this murder and we hope the French government will follow the investigation very closely,” the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “We express our sympathy with his family and his employers.” Three armed men, two of them masked, broke into De Bourgues’ fourth-floor apartment in Kurmangazy Street in the middle of the afternoon. The journalist’s Kazakh interpreter/translator was with him at the time. The intruders tied both of them up and demanded money in Ru...

What struck me the most in the past weeks during which we have witnessed a growing violence added to anger in the region, is that Egyptians who had constantly described Egypt as one peculiar entity compared to the "arabs", now and since the isreal attackes on Lebanon, start colluding with them. It is not "us and them" anymore, it is just "us". In a series of anti-Israeli protests in Cairo in the past few days, demonstrators raised portraits of the late Egyptian President Jamal Abdul Nasser with a caption reading "the symbol of Arab dignity". The protesters chanted slogans against incumbent Arab leaders whom they accused of weakness towards the Israeli attacks on Lebanon.Israel's sustained onslaught against Lebanon coincides with the 50th anniversary of Egypt's nationalisation of the Suez Canal. Back then, the decision proclaimed by Nasser on July 26, 1956, culminated in what came to be known as the Suez Crisis, which pitted Britain and ...

Hi eveyone, t's been a while... Find below a very interesting piece of article (written by Paola Caridi www.lettera22.it form the independent journalist association) to give you a better insight on the extremely complex situation in the middle east, and the difficult and strategic relationship with the US. I added a couple of pictures of the recent trips to relax your eyes and (hopefully) make you jealous...hehe Nation of strategic importance. Element of regional stability. In the view of American foreign policy for the Middle East and North Africa over the last thirty years, Egypt has merited mostly flattering comments on the regional role it has played. And all things considered, the compliments have reflected what Egypt has really meant to the USA’s political strategies towards the Middle East, the Arab nations, and the whole region. Including Iran. If only because, in that part of the world, the alliance with Egypt has been the most important and most unexpected diplomatic succ...